In the company’s first post-pandemic major tech event, which took place last week with hundreds of senior government officials, experts, researchers and business partners gathered, Huawei's leadership touted its next plan for the region in building digital infrastructure, promoting digital inclusion and low-carbon development.

“We have been serving our customers here for over 30 years, and we are proud to support digital development in the region. Moving forward, we will keep investing heavily in innovation to help our partners in the region meet their strategic development goals,” Huawei’s rotating chairman Ken Hu said in his speech to kick off the event.

Hu also said that Huawei would continue to invest in the region out of the conviction that the Asia Pacific was currently the center of global economic growth.

"The Asia-Pacific region is one of the most culturally and economically vibrant regions in the world. It has long played an important role in global economic growth, and now plays an equally important role in digital innovation," Hu said.

The statement was made as the West continued to pressure the telecom giant.

As Huawei rolled out its Asia-Pacific plan in the event, the Chinese government issued a statement hitting out at Canada for banning Huawei and ZTE from the country’s 5G network. The ban was issued on Thursday.

Huawei called the ban "an unfortunate political decision" that could not be justified on national security grounds.

The Chinese government said it firmly opposed the move and would "take all necessary measures" to protect Chinese companies.

Speaking after Hu, Huawei’s president for the Asia Pacific Simon Lin laid the path forward for the company and its future in the region, a strategy he called “In Asia Pacific, for Asia Pacific.”

“Huawei hopes to help [the] Asia Pacific build leading and green infrastructure, create a thriving industry ecosystem and empower an inclusive and sustainable Asia Pacific, he said.

Data from Huawei showed that the company has provided connectivity for more than 90 million households and 1 billion mobile phone users in the Asia Pacific. Huawei's cloud computing market share ranks number four in the emerging Asia-Pacific market.

Late last year, the Chinese telecom giant decided to double down on cloud services by opening three data centers in Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong. It also opened a cooperative data center in Malaysia.

Huawei has also established partnerships with nearly 10,000 enterprise and cloud partners in the region and plans to invest US$100 million in the Spark start-up ecosystem.

Together with its partners, Huawei has trained 170,000 locals on digital skills and plans to provide digital training to another 500,000 within five years as part of its efforts to develop a talent ecosystem that could drive the digital economy forward.

The Shenzen-based company had earlier pledged to commit US$50 million in investments to develop 500,000 digital talents in the Asia-Pacific region over the next five years. 

In Indonesia, Huawei is committed to training 100,000 digital talents over the next five years in collaboration with the Executive Office of the President.

Also speaking during the event, Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno said Huawei could provide the much-needed technologies to revive the COVID-19-battered tourist industry.

"Frontier technologies can become engines for recovery and revival. Customized, personalized and localized cleanliness, health, safety and environmental sustainability (CHSE) protocols are likely to become essential for tourism and creative industries to pivot," he said in a speech broadcast from Bali.

Sandiaga also said that the Indonesian government had invited tech companies to join its effort to transform the country's digital economy.

"As we look for novel solutions and technical breakthroughs to drive transformation across industries in Indonesia, we've just signed a strategic milestone with Huawei to scale-up Indonesian digital talent and power up local start-ups,” he said.